THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES

BRIEF MEMOIR OF
ALEXANDER MACMILLAN

/H^, A.^:u-.t^^'/^^^oK

Brief Memoir of

Alexander Macmillan

By his Son
George A. Macmillan

Being the Introduction to a Selection of
Alexander Macmillan s Letters

With Portraits

Printed for Private Circulation
1908

ULASCOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVRRSITV PRESS
BV ROBERT MACL£HOSB AND CO. LTD.

INTRODUCTION

After my father's death in January 1896, our old
friend Mr. John Morley encouraged me in making
a selection of his letters, and held out some hope
that if such a selection were made he might himself
write an appreciation by way of preface. Unfortunately,
the pressure of other occupations and the mass of
letters to be read prevented my making much progress
with the matter, and although now and again I found
time to read through some of the early letter-books
of the firm, it was not until 1905 that I found
an efficient helper in Mr. A. Tilney Bassett, who,
under my general supervision, went through the re-
mainder of the books and made type-written copies
of the letters which seemed worth preserving. These
were then carefully sifted with the help of various
members of the family, and especially of my sister
Mrs. Dyer, and were eventually put into type. My
idea at that time was to publish a selection from
the Letters with a thread of biographical narrative
sufficient to explain them and to hold them together.
The Letters were submitted in proof to Mr. Morley
in the summer of 1906, and he then strongly advised
that, instead of publishing them as they stood with
an explanatory narrative, they should be used as material
for a regular biography which should present as vivid
a picture as possible of the man and his work. We
naturally felt that Mr. Morley himself, a master of
the craft, and one who had been closely associated

INTRODUCTION

with my father for nearly thirty years, was the ideal
biographer. But unfortunately the cares of his impor-
tant office, and other literary work to which he was
committed, made it impossible for him to accept our
invitation, and in the end the work was undertaken
by Mr. C. L. Graves, who had already written for
the firm an admirable biography of my father's old
friend Sir George Grove.

As, however, so many Letters were already in type,
of which only a small proportion could be used in the
biography, it was thought that the collection as it stood,
with a brief introduction, might be privately issued for
the family and personal friends.

The following narrative may serve to make the
letters more intelligible, and it seems well to preface
it by the following delightful autobiographical letter to
an old Irvine schoolfellow, which was sent to us by
its recipient after my father's death :

Streatham Lane,

Upper Tooting, S.W.,
October 17, 1870.
My dear Speirs:

When I came home to-night from business, I gave your
most welcome letter to my wife to read, and she being a
wifely-minded woman was vastly pleased therewith, and vowed
that it should forthwith be placed in the family archives.

Indeed, my dear friend, your letter was very pleasant to me.
It may seem strange to other people, that I who really care
intensely for the simple human being and his individual worth,
and not very much for what is known as " position in society,"
" rank," *' birth," and the like, have yet the most intense
interest in, and love for old memories, old associations, old
friends. You have been among the old and dearly cherished
memories of my very chequered boyhood. I don't think
we were very long schoolfellows together, for you will
remember, at least I do, how very poor our family was,
so that even the very moderate school-fee that was charged
at the Academy was a matter of consideration to us. But
I remember very vividly some "stirring incidents" in our
common school life, and your prominence in the actions,

X

INTRODUCTION

small in the world's history, but curiously important in
one's own personal life. I remember a great " stane-battle "
with Scott's School (of which, oddly enough, I was Head-
Master afterwards, for three months, when I was of the
mature years of fifteen or sixteen) in which I think you were
one of the leaders. I remember, too, great snowball fights,
in which you and David and John Watt were among our
champions, with the town-end weavers. I remember, also,
one somewhat riotous and irregular affair, when you and
David Watt and I went down to the shore to " dook," and
varied our walk along the Halfway by shutting all the
" window-brodds" as we went along, to the disturbance of
the auld wives who rushed out to see what was up. I was
reminding David Watt whom I see now and then here, of
this affair, and charging him with being the leader, which
with his native modesty, he repudiated, so it may have been
you after all.

Poor Danie Stewart ! You are quite right. He was an
assiduous teacher, tho' wholly lacking as I believe in skill or
manliness to draw out the gifts and strengthen the moral tone
of his pupils. On the whole, I am afraid my feeling towards
him, then and since, was hardly one of respect or reverence.
I call to mind a great scene when John Watt took up his
bag and bonnet, and rushed out of the School, flinging back
some saucy taunt as he left the room. And do you remember
the fines, a "bawbee" I think, imposed on us for being late,
and a great conspiracy when all the bigger boys deliberately
stayed some quarter of an hour late, and went in in a body
gravely and quietly as if it was all right r Poor old Danie !
But what a different man Connel was, the master of the
Commercial Department. He stands clear and wholesome
before me now, with his small well-knit figure, giving out
with rare lucid skill the rules of arithmetic — not a very high
region perhaps, but high enough to exhibit what I cannot
doubt was as fine an intellect, and as true a skill in imparting
its ascertainment, as I ever saw. And how simple and noble
his whole moral tone was. Discipline was maintained in a
way that commended itself at once to the conscience and
judgment of every boy to whom God had given a reasonable
share of either. I think I was only three months with him,
and the impression he made on me was such that even now,
when I know most of the head-masters of the great public
schools of England, as personal friends more or less, I am
constantly thinking and comparing them with Connel. You

xi

INTRODUCTION

remember lie went to the High School at Glasgow afterwards.
What a lesson it is in his life to think how great is the influ-
ence unseen and unnoted at the time, a man intent on doing
his work simply, unselfishly, manfully, may have on the future
of any man's life, I owe much to his memory. I think he
was a common hand-loom weaver in early life, and taught
himself most of what he knew. And yet he was a perfect
gentleman, courteous, high-toned, simple, really noble, and
with what keen intellect ! That was my impression then,
and it was singularly confirmed to me after we went to Cam-
bridge, and had already become publishers of some of the best
educational books in Higher Mathematics. After Connel's
death, some one in Glasgow wrote to our house (my dear
brother Daniel was then alive) sending us a copy of a work
on Differential Calculus, which he had written and published
in Glasgow or Edinburgh, I forget which, and asking if we
would publish a new edition of it. We had just published
Todhunter's book on the subject, which then was at once
accepted as the best that could well be done, and which still
after twenty years holds its place undisputed. But, remember-
ing Connel, I asked several very able men to look at it, and
tell me what they thought of it. While saying it would not
stand before Todhunter, they, one and all, expressed great
admiration of it, and thought that, considering that the author
had not had a Cambridge or Oxford training, it was really a
masterly work. Todhunter is a man of the very highest
powers and acquirements: he was Senior Wrangler, that is,
the best mathematician in his year ; an accomplished tutor
of his college besides, and a man far above the average even
of Senior Wranglers, so that for Connel's book to be
thought of at all in comparison with his, was a very high
honour indeed. I can assure you that I was not a little
proud of dear old Irvine and its Academy, when I got this
opinion.

I am rather sorry in looking over the list of names you give
as our class-fellows that I can remember distinctly only two —
John Watt and William Johnston. David Watt told me in
a letter I had from him the other day, that on his recent visit
to America, he had seen and spent a long evening with
Johnston. He is in very bad health, paralysed, I think he
said. But he has been prosperous, and is wealthy and com-
fortable. I met him — Butterfly we used to call him — but he
was then a big burly man far removed from the slight figure
that led to his name — I think twenty years ago, on the top

xii

INTRODUCTION

of a coach going from Glasgow to Stewarton. I had not
much talk with him, but he told me he was in some line of
business in Canada, and getting on well. I don't think as a
boy he impressed me much. Of all others the boy I think of
with peculiar interest was Willie Boyd. Robert Buchanan,
who is in London, as perhaps you know, in the shipbroking
business, and whom I see now and then, came to dine with
me on my birthday — the third of this month (fifty-two years
old I am, alas I) — and we had a long talk about yourself, the
Watts, and other Irvine boys, and I asked him about Willie
Boyd. He told me he thought he was in the wood-trade in
St. Johns, Newfoundland. Do you know anything about himr
I should greatly like to know about him. He was a pet pupil
of Connel's, wonderfully quick at figures, very manly and good
as I remember him, and such a pretty boy, graceful and bright
as Antinous, or any Greek youth whom Socrates would have
loved. I wonder if he has fulfilled the promise of his boyhood,
or if he has turned out a mere mercantile drudge like the rest
of us. Pardon me, I don't mean you, I mean myself. You
kindly credit me with being the Editor of the magazine that
bears my unworthy name. It is true I projected it : to some
extent I influence its tone. I once wrote two pages of it, by
permission of dear old Masson, its then editor; but I am only
a dealer in literature as any one might be in cheese or pork.
The early tastes you kindly note, have always clung to me,
and when a series of those strange sequences of events, which
our pious forefathers devoutly, and, as I think wisely, called
providences of God, led me into dealing in books, there can
be little doubt I was led into the line for which my natural
gifts fitted me. But I don't write — poetry or prose. I am
like FalstafF, the cause and origin of many books, but unlike
him, not a creator of books (it was wit in his case) myself.
I ought never to speak of my success in my business, which
has been in many respects considerable, without saying how
much I owe to the noblest and best of brothers, Daniel,
who was my partner and guide for fourteen years, from the
beginning of our business in Cambridge in 1843 ^'^^ ^^'^ death
in 1857. Since then, over thirteen years ago, his children
have been mine. His widow, an excellent and wise woman,
lived with me and my wife till about four years since, when
she died. Now his three sons and one daughter are as my
own children. His eldest boy is with me in the business.
He is nineteen, a clever, well-behaved boy. His second gained
a scholarship at Uppingham Grammar School, which pays his

xiu

INTRODUCTION

education and living while at school. His third is at a private
school near Oxford. His daughter is taught at home with my
own two girls, by a very excellent governess. My own family
are four: Malcolm, just eighteen, has been educated at King's
College School, London, and is just gone to my Cambridge
retail business for a little training. He is as fond of books and
poetry and science and general knowledge as his father was,
but rather dreamy and wayward. Still he is a good boy, and
not given to evil ways. My second boy, George, gained a
scholarship at Eton two years ago. He is now fifteen and is
well up in the school, always comes home with prizes, and is
on the way to an Oxford or Cambridge Scholarship. A capital
boy in his way, sorely given to larking and chattering, hates
thinking and dreaming — a droll contrast to his brother — but
I think" he will get on in the world. My two little girls, of
course^ are darlings. I speculate and wonder at the variety of
humanity possible in a small double family. I think of the
old life we all had in the dear old Irvine home. They all
know that they are the children of what the world calls humble
parents, and I pray daily that I and they may learn to be
humble and helpful, and carry on the world's work as in the
sight of the Lord of Man, whose very highest character was
that He was humble and helpful.

Here I am going on talking to you as if I was writing
an autobiography, and probably boring you to death with my
moralisings and memories. But you cannot tell how a letter
like yours taps old springs of memory, and deep currents of
thought and feeling which have become the very well-springs
of my everyday life. The really great honour which my
fellow-townsmen, through that admirable man the provost,
did me, pleased me to a degree I cannot tell you. It would
be a wholly misleading use of words if I were to say I was
proud of it. It would be affectation of a contemptible kind,
if I said that I did not recognise in the work I have done in
the world, and the so-called distinction I have gained in my
calling, a reason why they should seek to honour me in the
way they have done. But after all is allowed by one's legiti-
mate self-recognition of work honestly and fairly achieved, one
is always driven back on the considerations you so well put, of
how much one's "success in life," as it is called, depends on
what seems accident, but as I said before, our fathers would
truly have called Providence. And surely you show true insight,
and insight informed with the truest of all wisdom — the wisdom
of the heart, love, kindness, that which makes us one with Him

xiv

INTRODUCTION

who is Love — when you point out how much depends on the
timely helping hand to the young struggler in the world. I
remember many such helping hands with gratitude unspeak-
able: I hope also with the sincerest desire to do to others as
has been done to me. With peculiar pleasure, therefore, I send
you the small sum which enrols me among the Life Members
of the "Glasgow Irvine Club." I feel it really an honour to
be permitted to belong to it. I remember well, when after
a somewhat foolish attempt at being a sailor, I was left in
Glasgow absolutely penniless. I went about the streets of
Glasgow looking out for any sort of employment, and finally
accepted with the deepest joy an ushership in a school with the
munificent salary of j^i2 a year, on which I actually lived
(I am alive still) for nine months. I had a good many really
kind friends who were willing and anxious to help me. I
don't think they could do more than they did, and that in the
way of help to a situation was — nothing. I found this myself,
and I fancy on the whole it was a good thing. I was then
light-hearted, I suppose what the English call plucky. I went
at the job I got, did it as well as I could, and so got on. It
chanced to be in my line. If I had been offered a good porter's
place at 6s. a week I would have taken it, but I don't think it
would have suited me so well. Still I tliink I would have
done it as well as I could. I never had the least ambition
to rise in the world^ as it is called. I think that is the bane
of life and action. Do the work that is given you^ that seems
to me the real law of life. Never mind whether you rise or
not. It makes my heart ache often when young fellows call
on me, as they often do, asking for situations, or for work of
a higher kind than thev have. I have, 1 am thankful to say,
often been able to help a man to work. I count it a great
privilege when I can, but ambitious youths who want to rise
in the world, and not simply to do the little bit of work God
gives them, are very hopeless. I must stop. Your letter has
set me on a vein of thought that 1 shall not work out to-night,
and I am usually so occupied through the dav with letter-
writing, that friendly letters like this are written after ten
o'clock, when my wife has gone to bed. It is now past

one she has just rung the bell, so I must go at once.

I cannot remember John Gray whom you speak so highly
of. An able unsuccessful man always interests me. Please
tell me about him. Do you ever come to London ? I should
so like to see you. If you will give me notice, I will try to
get Robert Buchanan and David Watt to meet you. Can't

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INTRODUCTION

you ami George Hrow/i come together ? We would have an
Irvine night.

Yours most truly,

Alex. Macmillan.

1818-1857.

Alexander Macmillan was born at Irvine, in Ayr-
shire, on October 3, 18 18. An account of his family
and origin has already been given to the world in the
memoir of his elder brother and partner, Daniel
Macmillan, by Thomas Hughes (Macmillan & Co.,
1882). His father, Duncan, had moved from the
island of Arran to the opposite mainland two years
before Alexander's birth, and died when the boy was
only five years old. His upbringing, therefore, as
described in Mr, Hughes' memoir, depended in the
main upon his mother, of whom he retained to the end
a proud affection, and his elder brother Malcolm, for
whom also his admiration was unbounded. Alexander
was educated at the Irvine High School, to which
reference is made in the preceding letter to his old
schoolfellow. To the picture there suggested of the
lively, high-spirited boy may be added the following
story which appeared in a Scotch newspaper :

Alexander Macmillan, now the celebrated London publisher,
when a boy, living in the Townhead of Irvine, learned to
swim in the Annick. The locality patronised by the youth
of Irvine half a century ago was the " lade," or dam above the
"Slate" Mill, and, at a part of the river on the Dreghorn
side, above the planting, where the bank shows a perpendicular
face ot a few feet, and the water is deep, the boys who could
swim well were in the habit of throwing somersaults into
the river. " Sanny," it may be remarked, was not in the
front rank of the swimmers, but had a full share of the tenacity
and pluck of the healthy Scottish urchin of ten or a dozen
years of age. One summer evening fifty years ago or so, the
feat of throwing a somersault into the river had just been

xvi

INTRODUCTION

accomplished for the first time by one of Sanny's cronies, and,
elated with his success, he had no sooner done sputtering and
blowing than, from the centre of the pool, he challenged young
Mac to follow his example. Mac, in puris naturalibus, stood
hesitating on the brink. " You're frichtit ; your're a coward,"
shouted the callan in the water. The taunt nearly cost Sanny
his life. "That was never telt of a Macmillan yet," he hotly
replied, and, backing to have a run on the green turf, he made
an impetuous rush, and sprang from the bank. There was a
miscellaneous whirl of head, legs and arms, and a terrible splash.
The wind was knocked so completely out of " wee Sanny "
that, but for the help of the boys who were near, it would
have stood hard with the future publisher of Maem'illans
Magazine. The characteristics of the boy, we believe, have
not failed the man. A determination not to be beat, but
pluckily to venture and to win, has no doubt helped materially
to raise Alexander Macmillan to the high position he now
occupies.

Of the period intervening between his school days
and the time (October, 1839) when he joined his
brother Daniel in London there is no definite record
beyond what we remember to have heard from his own
lips. He taught for two or three years,^ when still a lad
himself, at a school of rough coHiery lads at Nitshill,
in Renfrewshire, and it was sometimes a hard task
for the young teacher to keep control over pupils in
many cases older than himself. Later on he was
engaged for a time at a school tor writing and arith-
metic in Glasgow, kept by a Mr. M'Dougall. One of
his pupils here was Dr. Alexander Maclaren, the well-
known Baptist minister in Manchester, for whom in
after years he published many volumes of sermons.
To two other episodes in his early lite I can only
refer incidentally, because I have not been able to

^ The following extract from a letter of Nov. 29, 1869, on the
subject of Sonncnschcin's English method refers to this period :
" Perhaps you don't know that for three or four years of my early
life I was actually engaged in teaching village schools — all the early
and most drudgical part of the work. The last year — 1838-9 — I
had 130 children under my care of the poorest, a school in a mining
district, many of them Irish."

b xvii

INTRODUCTION

ascertain exactly to what period they belong.^ They
relate to spasmodic efforts to enter two widely different
professions, the medical and the nautical. We know
from himself that he at one time, though how long
we know not, acted as assistant in a chemist's shop
in Glasgow, and there acquired a considerable know-
ledge of drugs. He also made a voyage to America
before the mast, but never repeated the experiment,
which is alluded to in the letter printed above. I
should suppose that it was due to some outbreak of
his always impetuous nature against something in his
circumstances or prospects which was not quite con-
genial. It is certain that, like other young men, he
had his period of Sturm und Drang^ but the experience
only served to strengthen his character, and to give
him an unusually wide sympathy with "all sorts and
conditions of men."

On October 3, 1839 (^is twenty-first birthday),
he joined his brother Daniel in London as a clerk
to Messrs. Seeley, and in 1843 ^^e two brothers
started a small bookshop on their own account In
Aldersgate Street. The story of the move to Cam-
bridge, first of Daniel and then of his younger brother,
is told in Mr. Hughes' memoir, and need not be
repeated here. In that volume, which was written at
my father's request in order that the noble character
and achievements of his elder brother, to whom he
owed so much, should not be forgotten, his own part
in the establishment and development of the publishing
business was purposely kept in the background. The
letters given in the present volume sufficiently testify,
however, to the strenuous work which my father did
after his brother's death in 1857, and it is therefore
enough to say of the earlier period that he was
throughout his brother's right-hand man, in full
sympathy with his high aims, while he was able from

^ Sec, however, reference to his early visit to America in a letter to
my mother on p. xxxvii.

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INTRODUCTION

his bright and enthusiastic temperament to bring
valuable elements to bear upon the influence which
old Cambridge men of the period from 1 843 onwards
agree in attributing to the two brothers.

Towards the end of his life my uncle's continued ill-
health, necessitating long absences from home, threw
more and more of the burden of the business upon my
father, and this prepared him when the time came to
carry on the work alone, but always, as he felt to the
last, under the inspiration of his brother's example.
For two periods of many months each, in 1848 and
again in 1855, Daniel was away at Torquay, and daily
correspondence passed between the brothers. The
absent partner was kept informed of every detail of
the business, the callers in the shop, the letters
received, the sales effected, and the like. All pro-
posals for publication were fully discussed, and no
step taken without consultation. This was indeed
carrying on business under exceptional difficulties, and
the strain upon the partner on the spot, and the
anxiety to his brother who was thus struggling against
constant ill-health to keep in touch with and guide his
younger brother, must have been tremendous. I print
a few extracts from my father's letters to his brother,
and further use of this remarkable correspondence will
be made in Mr. Graves' forthcoming biography.

Extracts from Letters to Daniel Macmillan.

October 15M, 1848.

About talking : I have fallen upon a passage in George
Fox's Journal that takes my fancy much, and which I mean
to keep before myself and you ; it is this : He came to some
town where there was a large body of professors, who had
been very eminent for piety and godliness, but they had
unfortunately got infected with Kantism and went all
wrong. " I told them," says the honest George, " that after
they had such meetings, they did not wait upon God to
feel His power, to gather their minds inward that they

xix

INTRODUCTION

might feci his presence and power among them in their
meetings, to sit down therein and wait upon him ; for they
fuul spoken themselves dry ; they had spent their portions, and
not living in that which they spoke of, they were now
becoming dry," The truth-speaking George ! Verily it is
a most valuable and instructive book this of his. His
simplicity and courage and tender-heartedness makes one
almost love and venerate his extravagant doings. One day
he goes into a Steeple-house (so he calls churches) and the
priest was preaching from the text : " Come ye to the waters
he that hath no money, come buy wine and milk without
money and without price." " Then I was moved of the Lord
God to say unto Him : ' Come down, thou deceiver ; dost
thou bid people come freely, and take of the water of life
freely, and yet thou takest three hundred pounds a year of
them for preaching the Scriptures to them, Mayest thou not
blush for shame ? ' etc. etc. And the priest, like one amazed,
hastened away " — as well he might — the hireling fleeth because
he is an hireling — which the Honest George most assuredly
was not.

The steeple-houses were a sore affliction to him, and he no
less to them upon occasions.

Oct. 17M, 1848.

I was very glad to have your report of what Mr. Maurice
said. I find everything he says as a new spring of life to me.
I can assure you I am very much disposed to assimilate my
being to what he says about getting out the contemptuous, not
the loving and appreciating. May God's grace guide us, that
the same mind be in us which was in Christ Jesus. Surely
that was not a contemptuous mind. " Father forgive them for
they know not what they do," should lie upon us and crush out
of us all impatience for others' errors, and fill us with love
unfeigned for all our brother-men. Truly Christ's life is too
little felt by us, and is too little our life If it were we should
not need to mourn so often over envious, hateful thoughts and
feelings in ourselves and others.

Do you know, George Fox puts me marvellously in mind of
Socrates. Of course there is a wide difference, but still there is
that drawing of men's attention to what was in themselves —
in Socratic language — looking to the soul how it might become
perfect — in Quaker language, going to Christ their inward
Teacher — that causes a wonderful similarity.

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INTRODUCTION

October '12nd ^ 1 848.

Since then I have heard Mr. Carus preach a very excellent
sermon. I have noticed lately that he has been dwelling on
the nature of salvation — impressing on his hearers the import-
ance of feeling that it does not consist merely nor mainlx in
deliverance from punishment — but was as much, or more,
deliverance from sin. One was glad to hear this more and
more preached — would to God we could have it more and
more realised in our own lives. For I feel how very apt we
are even of such things as that, awful and practical as the con-
sideration is, to make them views of doctrine which we assert
against others. " God's great gift of speech abused " to the
desecration of his other gifts — which — if we might venture
to say that any of God's gifts are greater than others — would
seem infinitely more precious. " Words are good, but not the
best," so says one, — but that " a word in season how good it is "
— we know by daily experience, as well as from the Bible.
For instance, our dear friend George Wilson's letter. What a
noble and tender soul speaks there : Surely it is the voice of a
heart which has been attuned to harmony with the centre of
all harmony. I did not know him before he was afflicted. I
suppose he was always beautiful in spirit ; but his letters, and
indeed all his utterances, seem to me to have the tone of a man
who has been refined as bv fire : " Whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth."

Oct. 2yd, 1848.

I'll suggest that when you want me to answer any questions
you make an abstract of them on a piece of paper separate from
your letter, which I require to be filled with pleasant gossip,
advice, moral reflections, and general discussion on men and
things you see and think of If mine are dry it arises mainly
from the natural barrenness of my brain, bald utterance and
general confusedness of outward and inward mati, but partly
also that during the day, as you may guess, I am rather busy,
and at night a little tired — or rather lazy — fancving that I am
tired — and then I do love my pipe in my mouth, my feet on the
hobs, and a book in my hand immensely. Debaucherv in that
style. Need I tell you that I never do debauch till quite after
business.

Februars iSth, 1 849.
This humanity that we have is in no single, simplest, or
most shallow instance to be named suddenly. There is an

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INTRODUCTION

Inner Man whom we cannot see under even the vilest or
shallowest face. When we learn to reverence the God within,
then comes Charity to our hearts — rather is charity not this
very thing ?

March 5//;, 1849.

I am very glad to hear so good an account of G . I am

afraid that G 's selfish theory has a great truth lying in it

which the anti-selfish theory overlooks, and therefore fails to
convince. It is like the " private judgment " and " upon trust "
controversy, men poking each other's eyes out about which oar
pulls the boat. After all it is very clear that if I do right
and proper for a kind and generous action — and if it is an act
of my own — a conscious act — I do it for a reason. That reason
doubtless is with all rational minds because it fulfils my
proper being — in other words, satisfies us. It may be contrary
to our apparent interest — certainly it is conducive to our central
harmony. When Christ said, " He that will find his life must
lose it," it seems to me to be taken for granted that the finding
of life is desirable — only men are continually seeking after a
narrow, exclusive life, not seeing that our life is bound up by
infinite cords to all other men — as brothers — citizens — members
of a Church. I cannot be myself till I go out of myself and
find my true self in others — but in all this talk is it not evident
that self — true self- — or life — conscious — my life is a desirable
thing ? Why should we weaken ourselves by denying facts ?

March 6M, 1849.

I wish I could send you the volume of Fraser containing
Kingsley's y~east. Hoskin lent it to me from the Union. It
is really magnificent. Somewhat fragmentary and crude in its
outward appearance, but informed by a most coherent and
purposeful spirit. The sudden winding up is painful.

I confess I cannot see what good purpose Mr. Froude could
possibly have in writing that book of his. What he says about
the inconsistencies of Christians in their treatment of the poor,
and also in other respects, is very instructive to Christians. But
that chaotic, uncertain character, " all things are out of joint,"
surely it too is instructive to those who have firm ground —
teaching them to sympathise with those who have not yet
reached the desired haven — but to the poor strugglers so
numerous in our time, it is not well to have the confusion
worse confounded, the chaos made more chaotic.

.xxii

INTRODUCTION

March C)th^ 1849.

I have been reading the Gorgias of Plato. It is exceedingly
fine. It would be quite worth a philanthropic man's while to
print these dialogues as cheap tracts to circulate among the
more intelligent of the working men in our large towns. Any
Society for diffusing useful knowledge could not do better than
diffuse them. One ought to learn from Socrates that violence
does not form any essential part of the means for propagating it.

September ^th^ 1 854.

I do very heartily wish you joy this day and many such days.
I do most sincerely sympathise in all your gratitude to the
Giver of all good gifts, and in the estimation you put on the
gift He this day gave you — more precious than any possible
gift except His own love in its Highest Manifestation, and,
indeed, is it not a portion, a type, of this very blessing ? Surely
God was gracious both to you and to me in this strange land,
where without having to kill any Canaanites we have got a
promised land.

October 6th, 1854.

Your remembrances of our course of life since we came to
England should indeed fill us with gratitude and humility and
hope. Wonderfully indeed have we been guided and blessed.
When I look on your two noble boys and on my own fine
little fellow — for such he really is in spite of his father's praise
— and think on the wives whom God has given us, and our
position here, and indeed in England, surely there is reason
why we should gird up our loins to do something for God's
Kingdom. That too is simple, and requires only patient and
hopeful attention to the work given us. What do I not owe
you, my noble brother, for your patience with my weakness
and faults, and for your help and example all these years !
God knows, who is the giver of all good gifts and the root of
these blessed family ties, and who made that blessed human
heart, by which indeed we do live if we live really human
lives. I am far from being a good man of business, brother,
husband, father or citizen, and yet I feel a power of entering into
the blessedness that belongs to all these that gives me hope for
myself in spite of all my failings, for it makes me feel that the
Spirit of God of order and love is at least strong with me, and
trying to help me in spite of my worthlessness. How naturally
in these moods one looks back to home and the mother with

xxiii

INTRODUCTION

whom Goii blessed us ; oh, how deeply. There is nothing to
compare with this blessing. One hardly feels as if she were
absent, the words of love and forgiveness she spoke in those last
solemn hours before she passed into the Unseen are still here,
and fill me with a joy and peace that not even the remem-
brance of my undutifulness can seriously disturb. But surely
it should make me more eager to fulfil all present duty.

October nth, 1854.
Much thanks for your long and most pleasant letter — wise
and loving like yourself But you must not say that there are
not advantages in having larger rooms, better clothing, and
better food. They do not constitute happiness certainly —
indulgence causes misery. But after all, tight circumstances,
no more than tight boots, are comfortable, and I confess I look
forward with much pleasure to the time when everybody shall
be in tolerably easy circumstances. It is not to be despised,
and the old life is not to be lusted after any more than the flesh
pots of Egypt.

October 14^/;, 1854.
Bishop Colenso dropped in to-day and asked to have some
private talk. It was this : He wants to make up a companion
to Ho/y Communion out of the writings of Mr. Maurice. Mr.
M. has given his consent to the project, and any profits which
arise from it are to be devoted to the Bishoprick of Natal. He
said he thought we would forego any trade profits ourselves, as
he would look on it as a great triumph to be able to make a
good round sum out of Mr. Maurice's writings for missionary
purposes. His idea is to make some such book as Wilberforce's
Eucharhtica. He says, and truly, that the wide circulation of
such a book would do a great deal to dissipate the prejudice
which so unjustly exists against him, and so do great good to
England. For the excellent Bishop is not less enthusiastic in
his admiration of the prophet, and even accepted this designation
for him as heartily as any of us less dignified and younger men,

October 20th, i^^54-
Mr. Wayte wrote to say that the executors of Mr. Deighton
had agreed to go on with his book. It was a very civil letter,
and there was no help, besides we ought not to grudge anybody
anything. I do so deeply feel how envy in any shape and
towards any one weakens and degrades. Some people debase
more than others under the feeling — I most of anybody, I

INTRODUCTION

think. You can hardly imagine what deep peace it gives me
when I can get heartily to contemplate the success of others,
even of rivals. We ought surely not even to envy those who
appear to have a spite at ourselves. God make us unselfish
and like Him.self ! Why should I have indulged in this moral
reflection just at present, when I feel rather in a hurry r I am
sure I don't know. There it is, however.

May 6thy 1855.
To-day is the day of rest, of your dear wife's churching, of
our communion, and also of very strong promise of rain to the
earth. Vipan too is verv decidedly better. So one ought to
have quiet and peaceful and thankful thoughts. I have been
thinking several times to-day how very wrong it is to allow
business cares and thoughts to intrude into the blissful Sabbath.
I don't think that the old Puritan notion was wholly right ; I
think there were, and are, terrible evils connected with it ; but
after all there is a wonderful truth in it, and I certainly feel
stronger and freer and better this quiet Sabbath night for the
rest and restful thoughts it has brought.

May 14//7, 1855.
I should so like to see you all at vour breakfast table this
morning. The 2;rave, black man and the quiet, strong, gentle,
wee wife. God bless you all.

May 2St/i, 1855.
A long letter from you is always a very great treat to me,
next to what a long chat would be. My power of writing is
so poor and costive that it always is inadequate both to my own
wishes to what you have a right to expect. But such as it is I
know you will always take it in a brotherly spirit. It surely is
a blessing that God has built us in families and knit us together
by natural bonds which we cannot ignore, and not left us to
our wayward wills to settle for themselves whom they should
love and to whom they should attach themselves. What a
terrible thing it would be if we were all by some inconceivable
process to be tumbled miscellaneously into this world without
father, mother, brother, sister, and told to pick our path in life
and our friends as we could ; fancy the heartbrcakings and
pulings and blighted aflfections there would be. We should be
caterwauling like midnight cats continually. Melchizedec was
no doubt a pleasant old gentleman, but I don't think I envy
him. No ! father and mother are very excellent institutions,

XXV

INTRODUCTION

and brothers too, as I know to my soul's comfort. But the
best institution that ever was conceived may be made of
precious little worth if one chooses ; but I have not merely
the institution of brotherhood to be thankful for, but a brother,
and a very good one too.

May 2bth^ 1 855.
I told you hurriedly about Todhunter's eagerness after a
literary paper. His notion was for a weekly, or at any rate a
fortnightly publication — made, however, rather into a magazine
than a newspaper. He says he is determined it shall be done,
so if that is the case we might as well have a share in it. My
idea is to make a thing like the Revue des Deux Mondes^ and
call it The JVorld of Letters. Sir James Stephen was very
eagerly advising that we should do something of the kind too.
*' You have such material here, and it would do your general
business so much good." It really was very kind of the old
gentleman. I said the great difficulty in this sort of thing was
to find a competent editor. He said, "Suppose an editor
found," in a sort of significant way, that had I been in the
position to strike a bargain I should certainly have said, " Could
you name one?" ... I believe a thing of that kind might
be got up to an enormous sale if made tolerably cheap — is. or
IS. 6d. However, it is a matter of talk after all. I am
pleased with my title : The IVorld of Letters^ or Chronicle of
Literature.

July 26^/;, 1855, recording a visit to Charles
Kingsley at Eversley.

I reached Winchfield about half-past six, and had a good five
miles' walk along a high road that once was very much frequented
by mail coaches, and across a heath wild and wonderful — about
one half of each. They were both exceedingly interesting.
The road runs through two very nice little villages. Hartley
Row and Hartford Bridge, and all the way is very prettily
wooded. A peculiarity was that near the villages there
stretched on each side of the road for a considerable distance
nice grassy commons well sprinkled with very pretty trees, and
frequent with geese and cows and pigs.

... I strolled out about the garden and churchyard and
down the road towards the village and back again. I at last
subsided on a gate, and lit my pipe, and enjoyed the exquisite
quiet of the evening twilight. A great white owl came flap-
ping over my head, and again all was still. It was now close on

xxvi

INTRODUCTION

nine and my pipe was out, and I descended from my perch
and began strolling towards the village again, when I heard
voices in the distance, among which I shortly distinguished the
parson's well-known, although uttering something about build-
ing churches. Presently he was on me, and I had his warm
shake of the hand and greeting : " Ah, Aleck, this is too
delightful." He bade his friend, who seemed like a well-off
young farmer, good-night, and we went into the house, where
he ordered some supper — cold beef and cold plum pudding and
beer. After that we retired to his "little den," as he called it,
had much talk and considerable pipes and beer, till about half-
past twelve, when we went to bed, I had a capital night's
rest and a delightful bath, and we got into breakfast about nine
o'clock. After breakfast we walked out in the garden, and
then the parson, furnishing me with a pair of shooting boots,
took me up through a meadow to see some men who were
mowing. He had a lot of talk with them in a kindly way,
asking of this man's child and that man's wife in true human
interested way, that they seemed quite to understand and
respond to. We then went back to the house. It was about
half-past eleven by this time, and he had decided on coming up
to London with me, so off we started on my walk of the night
before. Over the heath he discoursed to me about the various
historical associations connected with places we could see in the
distance — how Sir William Cope's house, which we saw in peep-
ing through trees over there, had been a castle built by our
Scotch James for his son. Prince Henry, and how after his
death he could not endure it any longer, and sold it to some
nobleman, through whom it had descended to its present owner
— how over there was an old Roman camp, and on the other
side Alfred had fought the Danes, and similar traditions. Going
through the two villages he was accosted by various farmers and
butchers and peasants, and had a kindly word of enquiry and
greeting for all.

August 4.th, 1855.
I don't know if it has occurred to you that my dear new boy
came into the world the same day that, twenty-two years ago,
our dear Sainted Mother died. I find on reference that it was
on the first of August, 1833, that she died. Is it Popish to
say, "May her spirit watch over him" ? I think it is at least
a good and wholesome feeling to believe she will. I feel perfectly
sure that many a time I have been saved doing and thinking
wrong by the consciousness of her presence.

xxvii

INTR()DUCTI(3N

Augt4St Ht/ly 1855.

g//,, — Last night I was induced to go over to Shelford to
hear a young man of the name of Spurgeon preach, and after we
came home William Johnson took me to see him. He certainly
has the most marvellous gift of eloquence I ever heard. He
usid in London to fill Exeter Hall, and thousands go away not
able to hear him, and after hearing him I really am not surprised.
There is a curious simple-minded egotism and vanity about him
in private. He is a hyper-Calvinist, as he says, but in preach-
ing it was marvellously like Maurice.

Jugust 30//^, 1855.

Your letter to-day ought to be a lesson to me ; if I were not
a dull learner it would be. I really feel ashamed when I recall
the querulousness of some of my late notes. You must make
some allowance for a man with chronic dyspepsia. You can
hardly realise, I don't wish you ever should, the utter unreason-
ableness of a man whose acrid stomach is always getting into
his brain and clouding his heart. I don't know whether I have
ever said it to you before, but I may hazard repeating it,
nothing has ever struck me with more admiration than the fact
that our old countryman, John Knox, should have done all
that he did with a weak stomach constantly tormenting him.
The dear old man ; and yet we know that he was most kindly
natured, human as ever man was, with the warmest sympathy
and the most resolute will, writing and acting and speaking
wise and healthful and helpful words and deeds, and bringing —
did he not bring r — a savage and degraded people, bv God's
help, into something about as noble as the world has ever seen.
And here am I, poor spoony individual, allowing my paltry
ailments to interfere with the simple, most blessed, fulfilment
of my common brotherly duty. I felt at first reading of your
letter to-day a little annoyed at your complaint of loneliness^ but
on more careful thinking over it I feel indeed that so far as I
am concerned it is quite a just complaint. I must just say one
thing, not in my own defence, but merely as a simple statement
of fact, I have never felt concerning your enforced idleness that
it was otherwise than the most grievous calamity and trial your
active and helpful nature could undergo, and if I have ever
seemed to grumble that I had too much to do it never has been
even a momentary complaint of want of help from you. In
the first place, I really have not any more work than I ought to
be able easily to do. And in the next place, I never for a

xxviii

INTRODUCTION

moment forget that I owe to you that I am in the position,
with so little labour, to enjoy so many blessings. Are not my
position in life, with its wonderful pleasures and duties, more
blessed than pleasures, my wife and the dear results^ under
God, your gifts to me ?

September nth, 1855.
September 12//;, 1 855. — This is a glorious morning, and the
sun is clearing all mists from the earth. One ought always to
be able to live in some such atmosphere if it were not for our
self-born mists and clouds. Well, here we are to do our duty
under whatever sky. But the walk down from Park Terrace
in the clear pleasant air has filled me with a sort of material
joy, deepening down towards a truer and more rooted. Do
you know I do think happiness is very good for people, not-
withstanding all that the moralists do aver ?

In August, 1 85 1, Alexander Macmillan married
Caroline, the eldest daughter of Augustine Brimley,
a leading merchant in Cambridge, who afterwards held
the office of Mayor. His son, George Brimley, the
well-known essayist and contributor to the Spectator
and Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, died in
June, 1857, within a few months of Daniel Macmillan.
The connexion was helpful in stimulating my father's
keen interest in literature, philosophy, and religion, for
all such subjects were studied and discussed with no
less zest in the Brimley family than by the two Macmillan
brothers.

1857-1863.

The letters which follow belong entirely to the
period after my uncle's death in T857. Even before
that date the idea of starting a house, or rather a
branch, in London, to give them wider opportunities
of coming into contact with new authors, had been
discussed between the brothers, who were agreed in
thinking the step desirable. It was not, however,
actually taken until 1858, when a house was leased,
No. 23 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, and mv
cousin, Robert Bowes (son of my father's eldest

xxix

INTRODUCTION

sister, Margaret), who had been helping in the Cam-
bridge shop since 1846, was placed in charge of it.
For the next five years it was my father's regular habit
to spend each Thursday night in London, and to keep
open house that evening in Henrietta Street for any
one who liked to come and take part in a modest meal,
followed by free and easy discussion of literary and
other matters. These "Tobacco Parliaments" were a
very important feature in the development of the
publishing business, especially after the foundation of
Mamillans Magazine in November, 1859.

It is well known that Daniel and Alexander Mac-
millan were among Tennyson's earliest and most
ardent admirers, and did much to stimulate the interest
of Cambridge men in the new poet. It was no doubt
the influence of the Idylls of the King that led my father,
when the project of a magazine was first under con-
sideration, to wish to call it by the name of The Round
Table ^ and it was only under pressure from his friends
James MacLehose,^ Tom Hughes, David Masson (the
first Editor), and others, that he was finally persuaded
to give it his own name. It will be gathered from a
letter of October 27, 1858, to James MacLehose, that
it was in the first instance intended that the new
periodical should be a quarterly, and this idea was only
abandoned because of the announcement that Messrs.
Bentley were contemplating the issue of a new political
quarterly, to which, among others, the late Lord

^ As so many of the earlier letters in this volumd are addressed to
Mr. MacLehose, it may be well to explain that my father's intimate
friendship with the well-known bookseller and publisher of Glasgow
had been inherited from his brother Daniel, who had first met
young MacLehose in Glasgow in 1832-3, and afterwards renewed
the acquaintance in London, where from 1837-43 they were both
employed by Messrs. Seeley of Fleet Street, my father joining them
there in 1839. After his brother's death there was no one to whose
sympathy and advice my father more constantly had recourse, though
it did not follow that the advice was always taken. The tie has
been drawn still closer in the present generation by a double
marriage between the two families.

INTRODUCTION

Salisbury was to be a principal contributor. That
project in the end fell through, but not before it had
been decided that Macmillans Magazine should appear
as the first shilling monthly. The opening number
came out in November, 1859, and its great rival, the
Cornhill, with Thackeray as Editor, first saw the light
in January, i860.

To go back to the Thursday evenings in Henrietta
Street, which are often alluded to in the letters which
follow, I may add that a round oak table was specially
made for use on these occasions, and still exists in our
London office. If we had no other evidence as to the
interesting people who frequented these gatherings, this
table itself still bears on its bevelled edge the auto-
graph signatures of Tennyson, Herbert Spencer, Thos.
Hughes, David Masson, J. M. Ludlow, G. S. Venables,
Huxley, Franklin Lushington, Edward Dicey, F. T.
Palgrave, Alfred Ainger, Coventry Patmore, Llewelyn
Davies, and William AUingham. The letters them-
selves, and many others not included in the selection,
show that this is by no means an exhaustive list. In
the early days the contents of next month's magazine
were frequently discussed, and Masson, the Editor, and
Thos. Hughes, a principal contributor, and in the first
instance a part proprietor, were almost regular in their
attendance.

In the year 1863, the remarkable development of
the business led my father to decide that London must
now be its centre, and he took accordingly the old-
fashioned and commodious house at Upper Tooting,
which, first under the name of The Elms^ and then
re-christened Knapdale, after the region in Argyllshire,
where the Macmlllan clan once had its seat, was his
home for twenty-five years. The period from 1858
to 1863, however, covers not only the establishment
of the Magazine, but the first beginnings of several
other projects which helped to swell the reputation
of the firm. For to these five years belong the early

xxxi

INTRODUCTION

volumes of the Golden Treasury series, the Cambridge
Shakespeare^ Freeman's Federal Government^ the series
of Vacation Tourists, edited by Francis Galton, the Tracts
for Priests and People, Westcott's Canon of the New
Testament, and not a few other books both literary and
educational, which brought fame alike to author and
publisher. Of these perhaps the most notable is
Kingsley's IVater Babies, which I well remember my
father reading to us as children at Cambridge, either
from manuscript or proofs.

Nothing is more striking in reading through the
letter-books, from which only a small selection has
here been made, than the extraordinary activity both
of mind and body that they imply. Not only is every
letter written in Alexander Macmillan's own hand,
but it is evident from their contents that during the
whole of this period, as for many years later, he
himself read practically every manuscript that was
submitted to him, and although he might now and
again get a second opinion from a friend, he acted
for the most part on his own judgment. He often
refers to his difficulty in finding a " taster " whom
he could trust. He would write long and able
criticisms even of the rejected manuscripts, in which
his love and knowledge of the best literature and his
own ideals were always in evidence.^ And the books
which he published for new writers, and even for
those of established position, constantly benefited by
his revision both in manuscript and proof. The letters
illustrate also his strong convictions in matters ot
religion, his keen interest in social and political
problems, both at home and abroad,'- and his desire

^ The interesting letter to Mr. Thomas Hardy on p. 245 is a
notable example.

-They show for instance with what keen interest and
sympathy he followed the struggle for freedom in Italy, and the
Civil War in the United States, where from the first he espoused
the cause of the North, though fully alive to the dangers involved
in the at times arrogant and high-handed action of its leaders.

xxxii

INTRODUCTION

to make his work as a publisher tell in favour of
all that was "pure, lovely and of good report." Of
his special interest in religious questions, the references
in the letters to the controversy evoked by the publica-
tion of Essays and Reviews are a characteristic illustra-
tion, though I have given only a few out of many
which deal with the subject. His feeling, it will be
seen, was all in favour of the fullest and fairest discus-
sion of religious problems.

I do not propose to say here more of my father's
home life than is necessary to explain allusions in the
letters, but it should at any rate be recorded that when
his brother died in 1857 my father at once took his
widow and four young children into his own home, and
the two families were brought up side by side, first
at Cambridge, and afterwards in the new home at
Upper Tooting.

So long as he lived at Cambridge my father took
an active interest in various public movements in the
town, including the Industrial School, which was started
by Bishop Harvey Goodwin, who later gave an account
of its admirable work in an early number o^ Macmillans
Magazine, and the Cambridge Working Men's College,
which was established in 1855 on the lines of the
well-known College started in London by F. D.
Maurice and others, and of which a record brought
down to the present day has recently been published.
Among the teachers in this Cambridge College were
Harvey Goodwin, J. B. Lightfoot, F. J, A. Hort,
H. M. Butler, H. J. Roby, and J. B. Mayor. Alex-
ander Macmillan, besides taking part in the teaching,
acted for three or four years as Hon. Secretary. In
the early days of the Volunteer movement my
father at once enrolled himself (see p. 44), but
soon found it impossible to give the necessary time.
Though he never took up any form of sport, he
was, until well into middle life, an active walker,
and took much exercise in that form, both in
c xxxiii

INTRODUCTION

Cambridge and near London, as well as in his scanty
holidays.

1863-1873.

The period now in question is on the whole the
most important in my father's life. He had reached
the maturity of his powers, and the success already
attained gave him confidence to strike out and develop
the business in many new directions. His appoint-
ment in 1863 as publisher to the University of Oxford
was a notable recognition of his business capacity, and
although he claimed to be left free to carry on his
own independent work in London, he threw himself
with characteristic loyalty and eagerness into the
development of the Oxford publishing, while he greatly
valued the close and cordial relations into which his
position brought him with leading Oxford men, such
as Jowett, Dean Liddell, and others. Mr. Thomas
Combe, at that time printer to the Clarendon Press,
was also a much valued friend and co-adjutor. I have
selected two or three letters only to illustrate this side
of his work, but it should be said that for many years
he attended regularly the weekly meetings of the
delegates in Oxford, and remained until the end of
his term of office in close relations, both by letter and
personally, with Professor Bartholomew Price, the able
and energetic secretary to the delegates.

The break-up in 1863 of the well-known publishing
business of J. H. Parker & Son led to the transfer
to Macmillan & Co. in this and the following year
of the earlier works of Charles Kingsley (including
Teast^ Alton Locke and Hypatia), of F. D. Maurice,
of Miss C. M. Yonge (including the Heir of Reddiffe
and the Daisy Chain), and of Archbishop Trench. In
the case of the first two the change merely strengthened
a connexion already existing, but with Miss Yonge and
Archbishop Trench my father had had no previous
relations. In both cases the business association led

INTRODUCTION

to intimate personal friendship, which was not affected
by the fact that when, some twenty years later, Arch-
bishop Trench's son became a publisher his father's
works were quite naturally transferred to the new
firm of Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.

It will be seen from the letters that the move to
Upper Tooting almost coincided with the building of
a new office at i6 Bedford Street, Covent Garden,
where the business was carried on until 1873, when
its steady expansion made it necessary to move once
more to a larger site at 29-30 in the same street.

The letters of this period touch incidentally on
most of the important enterprises of the firm. New
volumes, including the Book of Golden Deeds, the idea
of which was suggested by his sister-in-law and
partner Mrs. Daniel Macmillan, were added to the
Golden Treasury Series. In 1864 the appearance of
the Globe Shakespeare marked a new departure, in
offering for the first time a really scholarly text of
the great dramatist at a low price. The choice of
the title, which as the letters show, was upheld
against the opinion of the learned editors, was the
publisher's own, and was a proot at once of his
vivid imagination and his sound judgment. The
following years brought companion editions ot Scott,
Burns, Robinson Crusoe, Morte D' Arthur, Goldsmith,
Spenser, Pope, Cowper and Dryden, besides prose
translations of the works of Virgil and Horace.
The Globe editions of Milton and Chaucer, though
planned during the period under notice, did not
appear until much later, the Milton in 1877,
the Chaucer only in 1898. The year 1864 was
signalised by the publication of Mr. Bryce's Holy
Roman Empire and Sir George Trevelyan's Caixjupore
and Competition Wallah. In 1865 W. G. Palgrave's
Travels in Arabia, Lighttoot's Commentary on the
Epistle to the Galatians, and Alice in IVonderland^
marked successes in widely different fields. In 1866

XXXV

INTRODUCTION

came Ecce Ilomo^ a book, as the letters show, in
which my father took the deepest interest. The
authorship, as is well known, long remained a
profound secret, and there is a legend, which I have
been unable to verify, that on one occasion the
publisher invited a party of notable men to meet
the author of Ecce Homo, and though Professor Seeley
was among them the company separated without
solving the mystery. The appearance in the same
year of Professor Huxley's Lessons in Elementary
Physiology and Professor Roscoe's Lessons in Elementary
Chemistry, marked the first fulfilment of a long
cherished idea that the introductory books on a
subject should be written, not by the ordinary
teacher, but by the recognised masters in each branch.
Both Professor Huxley and Professor (now Sir Henry)
Roscoe became his intimate friends. This and the
following year, 1867, saw also the publication of
Sir Samuel Baker's two great books of travel. The
Albert Nyanza and The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia,
and the publisher's letters on the subject aptly
illustrate a trait which the present Lord Tennyson
recentlv named to me as eminently characteristic of
my father, I mean his loyalty and devotion to his
authors, and his desire to identify their interests with
his own. The same period saw the launching of
various periodical publications such as The Practitioner
(1868) and Nature (1869), and new series such as
the Sunday Library, of which the first volume,
Farrar's Seekers after God, appeared in 1868, Reynolds'
System of Medicine (Vol. L in 1866) and the Science
PriwiTS, edited by Professors Huxley, Roscoe, and
Baltour Stewart, of which the first volume, Roscoe's
Chemistry, appeared in 1872, and to which his old
friend Sir Archibald Geikie contributed the volumes on
Geology and Physical Geography. The Sunday Library
was a series ot my father's own devising, in which
he took a keen personal interest. If, as a whole.

INTRODUCTION

the Library did not quite fulfil his expectations in
popular acceptance, so that in the end it was broken
up, it produced some notable volumes which, like
Dean Farrar's already mentioned, Hughes' Alfred the
Great, Kingsley's Hermits^ Dean Church's St. Anselm,
and Mrs. Oliphant's St. Francis of Assisi, are still in
regular demand.

Alexander Macmillan's visit to America in 1867,
to which full reference is made in the letters,
strengthened his already keen interest in that great
country and its people, and led before long to the
establishment of an agency in New York.

During this journey of nearly three months he
visited New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington,
Chicago, Toronto and Montreal, and described his
experiences graphically, though somewhat hurriedly,
in letters home to my mother. A reference at
Montreal to the effect that the town was much
changed since he saw it thirty years ago seems to
give the date 1837 for the voyage to America which
I mentioned earlier in this narrative. As an indication
of the pleasant society which he met and enjoyed so
greatly, the following extract may be given from a
letter dated Boston, Sept. 27 :

"The dinner at the Atlantic Club came oft yesterday at
half-past two, and a pleasant affair it was. Agassiz and Lowell
were not there, but Longfellow, Emerson and Holmes were.
Longfellow was in the chair. The Hon. Charles Sumner
was on his right, I on his left. Emerson sat next me. Holmes
was on the other side, and some six or eight others whom I
cannot name were there. I had a great deal of talk with
Emerson, more with Longfellow. After dinner Holmes
changed his seat, and came to have a talk with me. He is
a nice, brisk, clear-headed man, very pleasant and bright.
Sumner, who is quite a leading statesman, and knows all
the English statesmen, afterwards came to talk to me also.
With him I talked politics. He is very tall and a fine looking
man. Longfellow is the sweetest, pleasantest-looking man
I have met since I came here. He was very gracious,
and urged me to come and lunch with him to-day. Emerson

INTRODUCTION

too wanted inc to go and see him at Concord, which is 40
miles oft". This I am sorry I cannot do, but I did go to
Longfellow's to-day, and met Lowell and a Professor Child.
I had a great deal of talk with Longfellow. His house is
very beautiful inside — outside it is of wood, but looks quiet
and nice. It is in Cambridge, but still in the country sub-
stantially, stands by itself in the midst of trees and a garden.
We dined very simply at one, and went afterwards into the
garden and smoked. He is as much of a smoker as Tennyson,
and gave me a pipe as a memento."

Several ot the letters refer to the dinners which
for many years my father delighted to give on April
Fool's Day in his house at Upper Tooting, or at the
Garrick Club. It was his habit to have a menu
printed appropriate to the occasion, and on the back of
the card he would reproduce in facsimile the signatures
ot his guests, among whom were to be found year
by year some of the most notable names in literature,
art, science and public life. Several of these menus
survive, and I reproduce here the lists of signatures
for the years 1868 and 1871. There was no day in the
year to which the host looked forward more eagerly,
and his determination that it should be an occasion
tor tree and genial intercourse among all who thus
consented to "wear the motley" under his roof, never
tailed to secure an evening of true enjoyment, lightened
by the unrestrained flow of wit and humour.
Annual gatherings of a different kind, which were no
less keenly enjoyed by the giver of the feast, were
those of the staff at the office, which were held in
the summer for many years at Upper Tooting, and
were often attended also by authors and other friends
ot the house.

A word should be said of the controversy which
arose in 1864, between Charles Kingsley and Dr.
Newman, which led to the publication of the famous
Apologia. My father's letter to Dr. Newman of Jan.
6, 1864, shows his desire to be scrupulously fair, but
It was inevitable that his sympathies should lie with

xxxviii

INTRODUCTION

his old friend, and he accepted the full responsibility
for the publication of Kingsley's first article in the
Magazine. The whole matter engaged his painful

W68.

: hjttAyyc e>U A-0*«»,

"3 fc "Too^-va 0<4, ^^^

tot" C.cuyi€r<y ^ tnny ''>>T<rvotnI?.

y€'''CutyC^

/V"/t'-^'»«^„>^^

All Fools' Day Dinner, i368.

interest, and involved tar more correspondence than
it would be worth while to print now that the con-
troversy has to a great extent been forgotten, save
for the addition to the permanent treasures of literature
of one ot the most famous of all autobiographies.

INTRODUCTION

My father had for some time been conscious that he
must find some one to share with him the ever-growing
responsibilities of the business, and in i 865 he took into

/57/

'/i?57;^/^-T^

All Fools' Day Dinner, ifjr.

partnership Mr. George Lillie Craik, whose marriage
shortly afterwards to Miss Dinah Mulock, drew still
closer a very old tie of friendship with the author of
John Halifax^ Gentleman.

The letters of this period imply the making of several

xl

INTRODUCTION

new literary friendships, as, for instance, with E. A. Free-
man, who became in later years a frequent visitor at
Tooting. As in the letters so in verbal intercourse
there were marked differences of opinion between the
two men, frankly and trenchantly expressed, but the
friendship, rooted on both sides in genuine admiration
and esteem, and in the love of common friends like
J. R. Green, triumphantly stood all such tests. And,
indeed, all who really knew Edward Freeman knew
that his bark was worse than his bite, and that a warm
heart and real tenderness lay hidden below his down-
right and often combative demeanour. The Historical
Course for Schools, planned and edited by Mr. Freeman,
belongs to this period. His own masterly introduction,
The General Sketch of European History^ appeared in
1872, and Miss Edith Thompson's History of England
in the following year. It was about 1870 that Alex-
ander Macmillan first came, through Mr. Stopford
Brooke and other friends, into personal contact with
Green, which soon ripened into affectionate friendship.
Abundant evidence will be seen of this in the letters
from the date of the publication of the Short History of
the English People in 1874, to the death of the historian
in 1883.

Some family events, tailing within this period, which
deeply affected my father, and are mentioned in the
letters, should here be recorded. In June, 1866, my
youngest brother, Willie, a very bright and promising
boy, " the light and joy of our house," was carried off
by gastric fever when he was little over two years old.
In January, 1867, came the death of his sister-in-law
and partner, Mrs. Daniel Macmillan, after a lons[ period
of ill-health. In July, 1871, my mother died after
some months' illness. In each case the blow, though
bravely borne, was severely felt. The first removed a
child to whose life, in his own phrase, he " had looked
forward with peculiar hope." The second severed a
close link with the brother who had been so much to

xli

INTKODUCTION

him, a/id whose memory was an abiding inspiration.
The third deprived him of a companion whose unfail-
ing sympathy and keen intelligence had been of priceless
value for just twenty years of strenuous effort, and
whose loving wisdom had been his stay in all family
relations. It was well that he was able in the autumn
of 1872 to restore his "shattered home"^ by a
singularly happy second marriage — to Miss Emma
Pignatel, a former schoolfellow of our governess and
dear friend, Louisa Cassell. The following extracts
from letters to Mrs. Daniel Macmillan and to my
mother during this period are of some interest, one
giving a pleasant glimpse of home life and feelings,
another as showing him in holiday mood and delight-
ing in fine scenery, the third referring to a dinner
at the Garrick Club, which from the time of his
election there in the early sixties, on the proposal of
Thackeray, was always a favourite resort.

Extract from Letter to his TVife of October l^ifh 1864.

You will hear from Fanny about the Home Department,
i must tell you, however, that when I paid my early visit to
the Nursery this morning the first object that met my view
was the illustrious Winks sitting in his chair and flourishing a
spoon and looking like a man of business — with, perhaps,
a cross of the cherub, at least in parental eyes — as possible. I
am not sure that he has gone into the spoon line yet, I fancy
suction is found more suitable as yet. But it was a grand
rehearsal. I feel getting very old, and very foolish about all
these things. When the young leaf begins to show its green
the old begins to brown and feel weak on the stalk. Mystery
of mysteries — life pursuing death and death life ; youth shoving
age from his chair or his tree, and so the circle moves. But
we hold thankfully the faith that the life is not in the leaf but
in the tree — and all life is in the Living Tree — may ours be
there veril\- and indeed.

^ See the letter to Leslie Stephen of June 12th, 1878, p. 301.

xlii

INTRODUCTION

Extract from Letter to Mrs. Daniel Macmitlan^ of September

\Othy 1865, during a visit to the Border Counties with

Mr. Aldis Wright.

The walk home from Fraser's after 10 o'clock was superb.
We had had no moon, and only occasional glimpses of blue
sky ever since we left Moffat. We had very little actual
rain, and none really to disturb, but drifting mist rarely
amounting to showers, thinly-veiled sunshine, sweeping winds
and alternate calms, gave us throughout as pleasant an atmos-
phere as we could wish. There were actual gleams of sunshine
sweeping grandly over the hills, but of that tierce burning sun
your kind heart feared for us, there was none. But this walk
back from Fraser's was as fine as heart or imagination could
wish. We were hardly on the level road, after ascending that
sloping retrograde from the Manse, which I daresay you
remember, when we were met by a swift sweeping shower
which made us hoist umbrellas, under shelter of wiiich we
marched steadily on for perhaps a quarter of a mile when the
wind and rain began to subside, and very soon there was, if not
a great calm, yet a comparative calm. We could put down
our umbrellas and look about and above. A great breadth of
blue sky prankt with brilliants finer and of a mild fineness
such as jewellers might pant for eternities after, was above, and
all round the sky masses of dark and thick bright clouds in the
wildest and yet most self-contained confusion. Behind the
moon, more than half her orb left, was struggling through her
fleecy curtain. Anon she burst bravely through, silvering the
stream and the valley and the hills, so as to make one shriek
with delight. In the meantime we filled and lit our pipes, and
the calm and imperturbable Wright muttered, " Ain't it jolly ! "
Another fierce gust and shower, and all subsides except the
wind and our pipes under cloud and skilfully-set umbrellas ;
then again the subsidence and the shine. Suddenly the calm
Keeper — that's Wright's name now — I am the Madman — burst
out vehemently, " Tiiere's a Lunar rainbow"; and sure
enough there it was, with its left foot on the foot of S. Mary's
Loch, and its right lost somewhere, there was barely one half
visible. But what there was was of a pearly beauty, with colours
mimicking those of her stronger brother in the most enchanting
way. Till we reached the Douglas Arms she kept waning and
waxing and tainting and flushing in a shadowy spiritual way so
as to steal down to tlie depths wliere memory is life and becomes

xliii

INTRODUCTION

part of one's bcini^ now and forever. Altogether, it was about
as beautiful in the dim spiritual way as anything I have ever
seen — a thing to dream of all through one's life.

Extract from Letter to his IVife of February iT^th^ 1867.

Our dinner last night was very pleasant, Shirley Brooks
was in great force. We got home by the 1 1. 20 train. Robert
Cooke was with us. The party was — Lemon, Sh. Brooks,
Dicey, Morley, R. Cooke, Bryce, Charles Clay, George
Meredith and ourselves.

1872-1889.

Towards the end of 1872 the constant growth of
the business made it necessary to build yet roomier
offices at 29 and 30 Bedford Street, where the rest
of my father's active life was passed. During this
period the younger generation were gradually able
to give him material assistance, and finally to relieve
him in great measure of the burden of responsibility.
Frederick Macmillan, his brother Daniel's eldest son,
after a period of training first at Cambridge, both
in the bookseller's shop and at the Universitv Press,
and afterwards for five years in the New York office,
settled finally in the London office in 1876. His eldest
son Malcolm, from whose great intellectual ability he
had expected so much, did not, unfortunately,
develop the necessary business aptitude, and there-
fore, on the advice of friends, and especially of
IMr. J. R. Green, went up late to Balliol College,
Oxford, where he formed many valuable friendships,
though his career there was unhappily marred by
several periods of serious illness. When at last it
seemed possible that his wide knowledge of literature
and keen critical faculty, might after all prove of
substantial advantage to the firm, that hope was
again blighted by his sudden and mysterious death.
In January, 1874, I left Eton to begin work in
Bedford Street, and in 1882 my uncle Daniel's
second son, Maurice, who had had a successful

xliv

INTRODUCTION

career at Uppingham and at Cambridge, and had
then held a classical mastership for several years
under Mr. Walker at St. Paul's School, also came
into the business. In 1876 my father's old friend,
William Jack, joined the firm for a time, until in
1879 he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics
in the University of Glasgow, which he still holds.
Dr. Jack was himself a native of Irvine, and during
his distinguished career at Cambridge was a constant
visitor in the house at Trinity Street. My father
kept in touch with him through his subsequent
career as an Inspector ot Schools, an Owens College
Professor, and Editor of the Glasgow Herald, and
it was a peculiar satisfaction to have his old friend
and fellow townsman's help for a time in the
publishing work, where his expert knowledge of
mathematics and science, and his wide and varied
experience, were of great value. I have printed at
the end ot this Introduction a short appreciation ot
my father from Professor Jack's pen.

I have selected fewer letters in proportion from
this later period, partly because, with the help thus
available, it was no longer necessary for mv father
to write so much with his own hand. But until my
brother's death in 1889, from the shock of which
my father never really recovered, he was still
constant in his attendance at the office and took
the leading part in all that went on. The early
letters of 1873 touch on several important books
in which he took a special interest, such as Mrs.
Oliphant's Makers of Florence, Sir Wyville Thomson's
great record of the Challenger Expedition and Sir
Samuel Baker's Ismailia. The letter of November,
1873, ^o ^^- ('low Sir) Roper Lethbridge contains
the first suggestion of a business in India, which
has since assumed an importance hardly dreamed
ot in those days, though even earlier letters show that

xlv

INTRODUCTION

its possibilities were in my father's mind. In 1874
was begun the publication of another great book in
which my father took especial pride, The Dictionary
of Music and Musicians, projected and edited by his
old friend Sir George Grove, who had in 1867
succeeded David Masson as Editor of Macmillans
Magazine, and remained actively associated with the
firrn until his appointment in 1883 as first Director
of the Royal College of Music. The death of
F. D. Maurice in 1872, and of Charles Kingsley
in 1875, removed two of his dearest and most
honoured friends, intimately associated with his whole
career as a publisher.

The publication in 1881 of John Inglesant was an
event which had a special interest for my father,
to whom one of the privately printed copies had
been sent by Mrs. Humphry Ward. As his letter
of Feb. 18 shows he did not foresee, and probably
no one could have foreseen, its great popular success,
but it was a book which he " felt it an honour to
publish," and its publication led to an intimate
friendship with its distinguished author, who with
Mrs. Shorthouse paid more than one visit to Upper
Tooting. In 1882 a long-cherished idea was realised
by the publication of Mr. Hughes' delightful Memoir
of Daniel Macmillan, and several letters refer to
the keen pleasure it gave him to know that his
brother's noble character and work would be on
record for future generations. In January, 1883, he
went out with Mrs. Macmillan to Mentone to give
what help and comfort he could to his dear friend,
J. R. Green, who died there in March. Two letters
to Archbishop Trench and to Dr. Stubbs touchingly
record the final scene, and it is interesting to note
only two pages later the reference to Archbishop
Trench's own death, which, occurring in March,
1886, severed another old and much valued connexion.
In 1884, when my father ceased to be publisher to the

xlvi

INTRODUCTION

University of Oxford, his services were recognised
by the honorary degree of M.A., in which he took
a pecuHar pleasure.

Another event which also belongs to 1884 brought
the fulfilment of an old desire, for in that year
the works of Lord Tennyson were transferred to
Macmillan & Co. More than once in earlier days
negotiations were opened, and my father was always
most eager that poems for which he had always felt
so great an admiration should bear his imprint.
But he would never press his claim against a rival
publisher or take any step on his own part to
persuade an author to transfer his allegiance.^ It
was therefore all the greater pleasure to him when
at last the Poet Laureate felt free to propose an
arrangement, which has since held good, to the entire
satisfaction, as I believe, of both author and publisher.
A reference in the same year to the publication of
Col. (now Sir Frederick) Maurice's Life of his
father recalls another publication in which my father's
personal sympathies were warmly engaged.

Enough has now, perhaps, been said of my father's
work and aims as a publisher to make the letters
intelligible, but a few personal details may be added
to complete this brief record. In his earlier years the
constant demands upon his time made it impossible
for him to go very far afield in his short and often
interrupted holidays, but by the time of his second
marriage, in 1872, he was less closely tied to the
office, and the fact of Mrs. Macmillan's Italian parent-
age naturally led to his making, in 1873, ^'^ ^'"^^
visit to Italy, in which he found such keen pleasure
that it was repeated more than once in later years.

In the summer of 1884 he took the Rectory at
Haslemere for a month or so, and his delight with
what was then the almost untouched region of pines

^The letter to Sir Samuel Baker, March I, 1876 (p. 289), illus-
trates this point.

xlvii

INTRODUCTION

:ind heather on Hindhead, led to his purchase of
the property of Bramshott Chase, where he soon after-
wards built the house which became his country home
for the remaining years of his life. It was here that
he celebrated his seventieth birthday on October 3,
1888, and gathered round him a large company of
old friends, including Mr. John Morley, Canon Ainger
and Mr. Aldis Wright.

In 1888 the fact of his now having this house in
the country made him feel that, in view of his
advancing years, which made the daily journey more
fatiguing, it would be more convenient to settle in
London, and he accordingly took the house 21 Portland
Place, which he occupied until his death there in
January, 1896. The one thing which made him hesi-
tate over this step was the fear that the happy home
of so many years would be broken up, the fine old
house pulled down, and the land fall into the hands
of the speculating builder, who had already begun to
change the character of the neighbourhood from a coun-
try village to the crowded and unlovely suburb which
it has since become. It happened that about that time
a Suffragan Bishop had been appointed to the Diocese
of Rochester, and as no residence was available for
him, my father decided to offer " Knapdale " to the
Diocese for this purpose. His first intention was to
make the offer conditional on the house being put to
this use, but on its being pointed out to him that such
an arrangement might lead to difficulties, the gift was
made absolute. The house was actually occupied by
Bishop Barry for one year only, during the tenure of"
the see by Bishop Thorold. On the latter's promotion
to the see of Winchester, and on the present Arch-
bishop, Dr. Randall Davidson, becoming Bishop of
Rochester, for a time no Suffragan was appointed,
and the house was let to a layman and the rent applied
to diocesan purposes. Not many months later Dr.
1 eatman-Biggs, the present Bishop of Worcester, was

xlviii

INTRODUCTION

appointed Suffragan Bishop of Southwark, but, as he
already had a house of his own in the diocese, he
could make no use of " Knapdale," which accordingly-
remained in the occupation of its tenant until the
year 1905, when the long-contemplated division of
the diocese into the sees respectively of Southwark
and Rochester, made it necessary to sell the property,
which was bought by its tenant, and the proceeds of
the sale given to the funds of the new Bishopric.
No doubt the ultimate failure to devote the actual
house to diocesan purposes would have been a keen
disappointment to the donor, but in so far as the
proceeds of the sale have gone to help the work of
the church in south London, and the house still
stands in its pleasant grounds, his intention has been
at any rate partially and provisionally fulfilled,

1888-1896.

We come now to the closing period of my father's
life. After the move to London he still for a time
came regularly to the office, but in July, 1889, came
the crushing blow of his eldest son Malcolm's mysterious
death. On recovering from another serious illness, my
brother had gone to Greece in the autumn of 1888 with
his old college friend (now my brother-in-law), Louis
Dyer. When Mr. Dyer left him, early in 1889, Malcolm
spent some months in Rome, and then, revisiting Greece
on his wav, went early in July to Constantinople, to spend
a few weeks with another old college friend, Mr. (now
Sir Arthur) Hardinge, who was then Secretary to the
British Embassy, He had made all arrangements for
coming home, but on the eve of his departure made
an expedition with Mr. Hardinge to Broussa, in order
to ascend Mt. Olympus. The two friends parted
company near the top of the mountain, Mr. Hardinge
making the direct ascent to the highest peak by the
col between that and the lower peak, while my brother,
who was less active, preferred the longer and easier
d xlix

INTRODUCTION

ascent by the lower peak, and so along the col. As
he climbed the steep slope of the main peak Mr.
Hardinge turned and saw his companion on the top
of the lower peak, and waved his hand to him. He
never saw him again. After waiting some time on the
top of the mountain he rejoined the lad with the
horses at the foot of the slope, and found to his
consternation that nothing had been seen of the missing
man. It was too late to do more that night than
search the immediate neighbourhood, but on the
following morning a large party came out from Broussa,
and an exhaustive search was made, but without finding
the slightest trace. By this time the matter had been
taken up by the British authorities both in Constanti-
nople and at home ; two members of the family went
out, and, suspicion having fallen on some of the
Albanian shepherds who feed their flocks on the
mountains, a full enquiry was held, but the charge
could not be proved, and no clue whatever was found,
or has been found to this day, to clear up the mystery.
But the fact that no trace could be discovered of the
missing man, or of any of his belongings, seems to
exclude the possibility of a fatal fall.

It can well be understood how such a catastrophe,
and the long-drawn agony of waiting for news which
never came, must have told upon the father whose
affections and hopes had always been centred in this
his eldest son. Bravely as he bore the blow, and
cherished hope to the last, it struck him to the heart,
and he never really recovered from it. His strength,
and particularly his powers of locomotion, steadily
failed, and it was evident that his active life was over.

And yet in the evening of his days he found much
happiness in the society of old friends who visited him
either in Portland Place or in his beautiful country
home, where, while strength allowed, much of his time
was passed. While it was always a pleasure to him

1

'--t^XSii-'-

H

^ (If Mintirr ^ J(<u itn I Lni
III In.i lil^nity.il f Antni.s/ir 1/ (-/ki.s.

INTRODUCTION

to recall past years of strenuous life, and the precious
memories of those who had passed before him into
the unseen, he never ceased to take an active interest
in all that was going on around him — in the joys and
sorrows of his children, and, above all, in the steady
development of the business, of which he had been so
large a part. Of the old friends who still cheered him
by their visits, I would specially recall his partner Mr.
Craik, Canon Ainger, Mr. Aldis Wright, Sir Archibald
Geikie, Mr. Lowes Dickinson, Prof. William Jack,
Mr. Tom Hughes (who survived him by only a few
months), Mr. John Morley, Canon Benham, Dr.
Hugh Macmillan, Mr. and Mrs. Shorthouse, Mr.
Tom Bain, and his old Irvine friend Mr. Robert
Buchanan of Lloyds. To Mr. Dickinson we owe the
charming sketch of him, made in his little library
at Bramshott Chase, which has been reproduced for
this volume. I give also an earlier photograph ot
him in his prime and the admirable portrait painted
for the firm by Mr. Herkomer in 1889.

The end came quite peacefully on January 26, 1896.
He was buried a few days later in the lovely church-
yard at Bramshott, and the funeral was attended not
only by the whole staff from his office, but by a
large concourse of friends, many of whom had travelled
long distances to pay their last tribute of affection.
His grave is appropriately marked by a reproduction,
on a smaller scale, of the fine old Highland cross which
stands at Kilmory Knap in Argyllshire, and bears the
legend, " Haec est crux Alexandri Macmillan."

I shall attempt no summing up of my father's
character and work. That task, to which it is in any
case hard for a son to do justice, has been undertaken
by another hand. And the Letters which follow, with
the preceding narrative, are perhaps enough in the
meantime to indicate the manner of man he was. By

li

INTRODUCTION

way of supplement I give Professor Jack's reminis-
cences and appreciation, and, in order to give some
idea of the impression he made upon his contemporaries,
not only of his own but of a younger generation, I
add a few extracts from the remarkable series of
letters received after his death. At the end of the
volume I have reprinted the obituary notice writen
by our dear friend Alfred Ainger for Macmillans
Magazine, and also two of my father's own composi-
tions, the lecture delivered after his visit to the United
States in 1867, and a touching fragment, "The Child
in the Midst," inspired by the memory of the boy he
had lost in 1866.

GEORGE A. MACMILLAN.

PROFESSOR JACK'S REMINISCENCES

Mv own friendship with Alexander Macmillan dated
from 1855, when I went to Cambridge from Irvine. In his
house and his brother Daniel's I made the acquaintance
of many of my most valued friends. Both were open with
warm welcome to many Cambridge students, who learned
more in them of life and its interests and problems than they
had been taught in College. The two brothers — men of forty
to fiftv then — were full of eager sympathy with the young.
Naturally, they had seen a great deal, and could introduce us to
a good many of the new generation of scholars, thinkers and
writers, and there were few subjects that did not come up often
in the stimulating talks round their firesides. Young Scotch-
men were always welcome, and perhaps, as I came from Irvine,
as they did, I may have been received with some special kind-
ness. Friends came about them like David Masson and Dinah
Mulock, and Cambridge students like Alfred Ainger, John Kerr,
Ralph Fullarton, Lord Justice Stirling, but the brothers them-
selves, whose beautiful affection for each other seemed to
brighten and warm their atmosphere, were always the lights
of the two homes, happy with wives worthy of them, and
with their children fresh with the promise of the morning,
growing up about their feet.

I continued to know Alexander Macmillan well after his
brother's death, and when he had removed to London, and I
had returned to Scotland. But I came to know him more
intimately for what he was after he invited me to become a
partner in his famous firm in 1876. Nobody could come into
daily contact with him without catching something from his
enthusiasm for all that was best and highest in literature and
life. He was a man of incomparable force and " driving power,"
but what was most fascinating in him was the extraordinary
freshness and the exhaustless activity of thought which made
him the originator and inspirer of so many ot the literary

liii

INTRODUCTION

enterprises associated with the name of the firm. I am sure
that none of the famous authors with whom he was associated
in them failed to recognise how much they owed to his generous
initiative, his untiring energy, and the completeness with which
he mastered the most complicated details of everything he took
in hand, or took in charge. I look back across a generation to
many of the days in Bedford Street and nights at Knapdale
with him and his family and the friends and famous men who
came about him, as among the happiest I have known.

IN MEMORIAM A. M.

Rev. B. H, Alford. "When such a good man goes it is
a common 2;rief in which you will not grudge others their
outside share. How warmly the newspapers have spoken, and
what a loss this link with the fast disappearing generation of
Hare, Kingsley and Maurice ! "

Mr. Stopford Brooke. " Few men have done better,
steadier work for his friends and for the world. He was not
only a publisher but an educator, and beyond that those who
knew him loved him, and well he deserved their love. I
remember the very first day I saw him as if it were yesterday,
and how pleasant and eager his reception was of me. His
face and eyes in those days had so vivid a life in them that
they were unforgettable. I hope that when I come to die
I may have done half as much good work and be remembered
as lovingly."

Sir J. Crichton Browne. " He was a man whom from
my first introduction to him twenty years ago I instinctively
loved and trusted. ... I have often thought of him as one
of the most genial and generous of friends, and that I could
lean upon his clear sagacious judgment and kind heart in any
great difficulty in life."

Mr. James Brvce. " The news of your husband's death
fills me with grief — when I remember all his admirable
qualities and the many happy hours I spent with him in the
old days, before his wonderfully keen and active mind had
begun to suffer from the physical weakness of the last few
years. . . . Thirty years ago he was the brightest and most
genial of friends, never so happy as when he had his friends
round him, and full of sympath)' for whatever of joy or sorrow
came to them, interested in all good causes, and ready to help
in promoting them with a sense of duty and genuine simplicity
of character which his success in life had left undiminished and

Iv

INTUODUCTION

unspoiled. The recollection of such a character and of the
admirable work he did in the world will be, I trust, a great
consolation to you and his children in your heavy sorrow. He
has left behind few like him."

The Master of Trinity (H. M. Butler). "Pray let me
be allowed to add just one word from one who knew him first
and best a long time ago, between the years 185 1 and 1859.
He was always very kind to me during those happy years, and
greatly I enjoyed my chats with him on Hare, Tennyson,
C. Kingsley, Maurice, Lushington's 'Points of War,' and many
others. I remember his doing me the honour to ask if I
thought it was worth while to start a new monthly, and I was
foolish and ignorant enough to throw a little cold water on it,
not foreseeing the individuality that was so honourably to mark
Alacmillans Magazine. He was emphatically a good man,
with a large warm heart. As long as you live his memory
must be a sacred treasure to you all."

Mrs. W. K. Clifford. " His kind eyes and fine face are
so plainly before me as I write. What a privilege it was to
have known him. He was so full of dignity and gentleness
and fineness."

Mr. Julian Corbett, "You know perhaps better than
any one how much he did for me ; how much I learned in
those long evenings at Knapdale. It was there I found my
career and all that has seemed to make my life worth living,
and his memory must always be to me sweet and sacred."

Prof. Boyd Dawkiks. " Your father was a good friend to
me when I was young, struggling and unknown, and v/ill
always remain in my memory as one of my frankest and truest
friends."

The Bishop of Durham (Dr. Westcott). " From the
very beginning of my work your father was constant in counsel
and encouragement, and I have always felt how much I have
owed to his unfailing kindness. . . . At least all his friends
can be thankful that the noble ambition of his life, so touch-
ingly described in the memoir of his brother, has been perfectly
fulfilled. The house is an enduring monument."

Mr. H. W, Eve, " I am indebted to him for many kindnesses
in past times. Few men, I think, will have left more numerous
or more attached friends."

Mrs. Henry Fawcett. " My husband always felt how
much indebted he was to Mr. Macmillan for wise counsel and

Ivi

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS

generous appreciation. He will be deeply mourned and much
affection will follow him to his rest."

Dr. Fowler, President of Corpus. " My intercourse with
your father as a publisher, whether on his own account or on
that of the University Press, has always been very agreeable,
and I have very pleasant recollections of many hours spent in
his company whether in London, at Oxford, or at his own
house."

Sir William Geddes (of Aberdeen University). " We
lose in him a link of golden memories from a great time — a
good soul as ever looked forth from human eyes."

Mr. Frederick Greenwood. " It was a life so completely
fulfilled in all that hope and endeavour set out to accomplish
that all there is to regret is the absolutely inevitable end that
awaits us all."

Mr. Frederic Harrison. " It would be very difficult to
estimate all that modern English literature owes to the energy,
acuteness and public spirit of Mr. Macmillan ; and none know
it so well as those men of letters who found in him not only
a great power, but a wise friend."

Mr. Tom Hughes. " He was a man of looo, and I doubt if
I could not tell off on the fingers of one hand all the men I have
known who had as strong heads and warm hearts combined."

Mr. Wilson King (formerly American Consul at Birming-
ham). "It was my privilege to make two visits to Knapdale,
and they live among my most treasured memories. I met with
so much kindness and so many interesting people ; but very
distinctly there stands out from that background the noble and
beautiful figure of your father. . . . He was a strong, good
man, and if he had never lived the world would be a worse
place than it is."

Rev. Brooke Lambert. " I shall never forget a night at
Knapdale, when we had been talking of the men he had
known, and he looked up at me and said : ' I have lived among
the gods.' "

Mr. R. B. Litchfield. "Your father's death has been
sending my thoughts back to very old days — forty-five years
ago — when by good luck I got to know him at Cambridge.
All that long time he was a good friend to me, and I always
looked up to him as one of the truest and most wide-minded
men it has been my fortune to know. My thoughts go back
especially to those nights in Henrietta Street, where there was

Ivii

INTllODUCTION

always a warm welcome for his old friends, the obscure as well
as the famous. For that and other things I shall always feel
grateful to him. No one could know him without feeling the
force of his character, and honouring him as a good and true
man."

Dean of Llandaff (Dr. Vaughan). " The remembrance
of him as he sat in his private room in Bedford Street, beginning
to feel the approaches of age, yet still as clear and as kind and
as sympathetic as ever, is happily still in my possession, and will
be cherished while life lasts."

Mr. Vernon Lushington. " Pray allow me as a very old
friend of your father to express the esteem and affectionate
regard in which I held him, and my gratitude for his kindness
and ever cordial greetings."

Mr. James MacLehose (the younger). " He was very good
to me, and I shall not forget the talks in the Knapdale library
and the bright, cheery welcome at Portland Place and the Chase.
His generous estimate of men and things was often a lesson to
me, and his loyalty to his friends, his sympathy with younger
minds, and his scorn for littleness in life are things to remember
and be refreshed by."

Dr. Hugh Macmillan. " It was a noble work that he did
in his day and generation. He left the world wiser than he
found it. And among the forces that have made the latter part
of the nineteenth century what it is, must be reckoned that
which your dear husband contributed as not the least. I owe
him many kindnesses, which I shall never forget ; and I have
many precious memories and associations connected with him
which form an inalienable treasure."

Dr. J. P. Mahaffy. " His family know well what they owe
to him, but far beyond that circle men like me, whom he
encouraged when we were small and of no reputation, look
back upon him as a benefactor who helped deserving men in
the best way wherever he found them."

Prof. David Masson. " The memory of him will be among
my possessions till I go too. He was one of the oldest of my
friends, and connected with me by the most close and affec-
tionate intimacy through many years. His was a remarkable
character, with a combination of faculties and moral qualities
such as I remember in no one else, and which has always been
to me the key of explanation of his great business achieve-
ments."

Iviii

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS

Sir Alfred (now Viscount) Milner. " He lives in my
memory, not only by the vigour and charm of his personality,
but by the great cordiality and kindness which he always
showed towards me in those days when I was just beginning
life in London. Such things are not forgotten. I am sure
there are many others, from whom you will perhaps never
hear, who have cause, as I have, to bear in mind his helpful
and sympathetic warm-heartedness, as well as the liberality of
his mind and the interest of his conversation."

Mr. John Morley (to G. A. M.). "He became my friend
when friends were few, and nobody was ever more helpful and
considerate. Many another man will say the same of him."

Mr. John Morley (to Mrs. Macmillan). "All of us who
worked with him — and it is now nearly thirty years since he
first took me by the hand — will remember to the end of our
days his energy, his justice of mind, his wide sympathy, his
tenacity of good purposes. It is satisfactory to see the public
recognition that his death has evoked, of the great qualities
shewn by him in his life."

Mrs. Oliphant. "He has fulfilled his long and laborious
life in honour and peace, which is a good thought for those
that come after him."

Mr. H. Orrinsmith (of Messrs. James Burn Sc Co.). "To
be worthy of the esteem of such a man as Alexander Macmillan
is a sort of ' cachet.' I have just re-read with tearful eyes two
letters written to me long ago full of wisdom and kindness. I
leave these to my children as a witness to whatever small merit
I may claim. . . . God knows how sincere was my regard for
and loyalty to him. I can never forget his kindly help and
consideration for me at the outset of my change of vocation."

Mrs. Paget (late wife of the Bishop of Oxford, and a
daughter of Dean Church). " I so well remember your father
coming to dine at the Deanery in old days, and how much my
father always liked and admired him."

Rev. Francis Procter. " Oh, it calls back memories of
years. . . . Your dear father has given and left a bright
example."

Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie (to M. C. M.). "I am indeed
glad and thankful to have known him, and to have been one of
the many who cared for him, and realised his very great charm
and goodness. ... I somehow feel that there can be but one

lix

INTRODUCTION

emotion of affectionate sad sympathy with you all, and among
us all who have lost so dear and kind and good a friend."

Dr. Rutherford (to Mrs. Macmillan). " Many will feel
to-day that for a while at least they lose a good and staunch
friend. I know I lose the best friend, not kin, that I ever had.
He seemed to get at the heart of all who knew him, and to
bring out the best that was there. You and he made Knapdale
the sort of place that no one who knew it could ever forget."

The Same (to M. C. M.). " Your uncle was one of my
heroes — one to whom I am conscious of owing a great deal."

Professor Herbert Ryle (now Bishop of Winchester). " As
lona; as hard work and English literature are held in esteem in
our land, so long will the influence which he exerted be under-
stood and valued. No nobler tribute could be paid to his memory
than the record of the names of those, his contemporaries,
who had him as their attached friend, and who owed it to
his friendship that they ' voiced ' the best thought of Great
Britain."

Mr. J. H. Shorthouse. " He had that wonderful Scottish
nature and gift which enables the possessor to real'i%e life. He had
a grasp of life in its claims and in its possibilities which gave him
an insight and sympathy with the claims and possibilities of
other men, which I fancy was not only the secret of his success,
but the source of his beneficent life in helpfulness to others."

Mr. E. S. Shuckburgh. " It is now just thirty years ago that
I remember first seeing your father . . . and I remember well
to this day how I was impressed by the vigour and brightness
of his mind and the width of his intellectual sympathies. His
was a character and career of which you all have just grounds
to be proud, and it pleases me to think that Cambridge can
claim some portion of it as closely connected with itself. I
think, besides the grand success of building up such a business,
he will be remembered as having raised the moral position of
publishing and as having shewn that success may be combined
with a real and high regard for the best interests of education
and the dignity of literature."

Sir James Stirling. " The announcement brought a pain-
ful sense of the loss of a friend whom I have known nearly
forty years. I recall with gratitude much kindness received
from him in the old Cambridge days and afterwards."

The Dowager Lady Tennyson, after referring to the loss of
" our true, sympathetic, and much valued friend," added,

Ix

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS

" You have all the comfort of looking back on so honourable
and distinguished a career, and of feeling that the world cannot
but be the better for his work in it."

Mr. F. W. Walker (to M. C. M.). "I enjoyed your
uncle's conversation more than that of any friend who has
been spared to me. The charm of his intercourse lay, I believe,
not in his natural shrewdness nor in his knowledge of men and
things, remarkable as these were, but in the goodness of his
heart. I do not remember ever to have heard him say an
injurious word of any one, or indeed any one to have said an
injurious word of him."

Mrs. T. H. Ward. " I am always so glad that I remember
Mr. Macmillan in his vigorous energy and fulness of mind.
What a rich personality ! "

Dr. Welldon (now Dean of Manchester), (to G. A. M.).
"His kindness to me in old days, your own long friendship,
my feeling for your family, forbid me to keep silence when you
are mourning for his loss. What a noble link he was between
past times and present, seeming to unite the worthiness of both !
I do not venture to praise him to you ; but nobody whom I
have known made a more distinct and vivid impression upon
my mind than he, and it always seemed to me that in him
shrewdness and kindliness, strength and simplicity, wisdom
and piety, kissed each other."

Dr. Randall Davidson (now Archbishop of Canterbury),
(to G. A. M.). " One who has so long been a foremost leader
in the great work of helping us all to whatsoever things are true
and lovely and of good report. I have so keen a remembrance
of your father's constant kindness to me that I cannot forbear
sending you this line of true fellow-feeling in your sorrow. . . .
His loss will be felt by thousands who never saw him."

Mr. W. Aldis Wright. " He was my oldest friend, and such
an event cannot but make a great severance in the continuity of
one's life. . . . He has left you the priceless inheritance of a
good name in the best of all senses, and his work shows a
record of which you all may well be proud."

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